New Delhi: Changes in the electoral law, including allowing the linking of Aadhaar to voter IDs, are set for a Rajya Sabha debate today. With the opposition raising a strong protest and demanding a review, the government has detailed its arguments in a note.
Here’s why the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2021 is needed, according to “government sources”:
- In a presentation for BJP MPs this morning, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said that all the parties including the Trinamool which have been criticising the bill have been part of the standing committee where such recommendations were made.
- The ‘Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2021’ incorporates various electoral reforms which have been discussed for a long time.
- Registration in the electoral roll is done based on an application by a person who is eligible to be registered as a voter.
- This bill has a provision whereby the new applicant may voluntarily provide Aadhaar number along with the application for the purpose of identity.
- No application will be rejected because Aadhaar number has not been provided.
- Aadhaar linking with electoral roll will solve one of the major problems in electoral database management which is multiple enrolments of the same person at different places.
- This may be due to the frequent shifting of residence by electors and getting enrolled in the new place without deleting the previous enrolment.
- Thus, the possibility of electors whose names appear in more than one electoral roll or at times more than once in the same electoral roll can be removed.
- Once the Aadhaar linkage is achieved, the electoral roll data system will instantly alert the existence of previous registration(s) whenever a person applies for new registration.
- This will help in cleaning the electoral roll to a great extent It will also facilitate elector registration in the location at which they are ‘ordinarily resident’.
